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so my foot slides into place mind blown only a very few number of people have actually been to time my tannic less than 50 you had a lot of mystery about why you went down so eople should not risk their lives to see this wreck at 4,000 meters. that is not a normal thing to do. [suspenseful music] it simply is adding to the intrigue of the titanic that 100 years later, it's still leading people to their death. [dramatic music] hello. and welcome to how it really happened. i'm jesse l. martin.

the rms titanic sank to the frigid depths of the atlantic over a century ago, but america's fascination with the ill-fated wreck never gets old because there is always something new. within the last 40 years, amazing advances in science and technology have led to brilliant new discoveries and uncovered hidden secrets. tonight, we look into how the very latest titanic learning upends our previous thinking about the ship's mysteries and myths and, sadly, a recent underwater voyage to the wreck that put more human lives at risk. [dramatic music] [engine whirring] victor vescovo: diving to titanic is, in many respects, preparing to go to space because it's an incredibly hostile environment. [tense music] when we think about risk taking as it applies to exploration, for me, it's the sea.

the reality is that there's been fewer people that have dove to the titanic than have actually gone into space. [whistling] [creaking] [tense music] reporter: an urgent search and rescue operation is now underway in the north atlantic in the area near the wreck of the titanic to find a lost submersible with five people aboard. craig sopin: when the titan failed to surface at its indicated time, then there was an alarm. and the coast guard was notified, and the search ensued. reportter: the us coast guard tells cnn it's got a ship on the scene and aircraft, including c-130 planes, canadian ships and planes joining the search as well. craig sopin: the titan was a submersible that was being used to bring passengers to look at and learn about the titanic firsthand. [somber music] five people were aboard the titan,

including stockton rush, who owned oceangate, the company that operated the titan. oren liebermann: pakistani british billionaire shahzada dawood, 48 years old, and his 19-year-old son, sulaiman. victor vescovo: the other members that were on board were p.h. nargeole. he was involved in virtually every major expedition to titanic. and then hamish harding was a passenger on the vessel. titanic was something that he just really, really wanted to see. and he thought-- in his own words to me, he thought that the titan was safe enough. [tense music] oren liebermann: oceangate explorations would give you a few hours on the bottom of the ocean with the titanic on board their sub, the titan. but 1 hour 45 minutes into the dive, communication with the titan was lost. there was 96 hours of oxygen on board the titan, so the timeline is ticking from the very beginning. there was hope that they were possibly still alive. it was truly a mystery playing out in real time.

and we all wondered, did the five people on board the titan lose their lives on the very wreck they were trying to explore? [horn blaring] parks stephenson: i've heard it said once that the three most recognized words in the english language are “god,” “coca-cola,” and “titanic.” what is it about the titanic that makes it so that we cannot get enough? why are we so obsessed with this ship? reporter: 73 years after it sank, a team of french and american scientists announced they'd found the titanic 2 and 1/2 miles down. tim maltin: on the 1st of september, 1985, bob ballard from woods hole oceanographic institute in the us, together with a team of very experienced french navy diving experts, conducted a joint mission to go and try and find the titanic.

the expedition really had to search hard to find the location of titanic because it wasn't where the distress coordinates had stated it was. they were surprised by how far off the mark the distress coordinates were. victor vescovo: the titanic is located about three or four days steaming south of newfoundland, canada. tad fitch: 350, 360 miles off the coast of newfoundland. tim maltin: titanic lies in the darkness 2 miles below the surface. [radar beeping] tad fitch: all those years, it had sat there untouched. nobody had seen the ship in any capacity since the day it sank. robert ballard: the first thing that we encountered were the boilers that had gone through the bow. the first image we had was a boiler. the ship is in beautiful condition where it is. tad fitch: when ballard announced that he had found the wreck of the titanic, he immediately caught the world's attention. [suspenseful music] oren liebermann: the discovery of the wreck helped answer some of those questions, questions that there was no other way to figure out without finding the remnants of the ship itself.

tad fitch: the images that they retrieved were remarkable. reporter: they were aided by jason junior, a sophisticated underwater camera. tad fitch: seeing dishes and shoes, some boiler or a piece of equipment, pots and things from the kitchens, it was fascinating to see these things there on the floor of the ocean right where they had landed. the key was coming up with the right search strategy because it was a big area. i realized that the key was not to look for the titanic. don't look for it. look for the debris that comes off of it. victor vescovo: and late on september 1, they saw what appeared to be a titanic boiler. tim maltin: and then they found the titanic in two halves. the bow was quite well preserved, stuck in the mud. and then the stern had really completely imploded and was like a junkyard. the bow and the stern were found about 1/2 a mile apart. tad fitch: i remember thinking we were disappointed that it wasn't in better condition. we'd had this fantasy that it sunk in one piece,

regardless of what the survivors remembered. a lot of people, including me, had never realized it split in two. that in itself was quite a surprise. i was seduced by the imagery of dr. ballard's expeditions and seeing the real wreck on the bottom. but i wanted a human interface between that imagery and the imagery of 1912. and i wanted-- so it ultimately becomes a story about memory. [tense music] titanic was called the ship of dreams. and it was. tim maltin: when bob ballard found the wreck, it brought it to a whole new audience. when james cameron did the film, it really brought the disaster home again to a whole new generation of people and, of course, to a huge global audience. we're going to make it, rose. trust me. suddenly, you could see titanic in full color brought back to life. andrew wilson: and because it recounts a very human story, a romance across the class divide, i think that really

captures people's imagination. parks stephenson: it literally took my breath away. that ending just struck me for some reason to be able to go down to the wreck and see all the ghosts walking around. james cameron got pulled into this whole titanic mania and did his own exploration and research and uncovered new evidence. larry king: there are titanic freaks, right, people who collect items? [laughs] definitely. yeah, definitely. there's a large number of them. mr. cameron, have you become one? james cameron: yes, i think so. this is not, then, just another film you directed? no, i'm a bona fide rivet counter now. i've been sucked into the vortex of fascination with titanic. [crashing] titanic's sinking and her entire story is shrouded in incredible mysteries. and that is partly why we keep coming back. we always want to know more. we always want to find those answers. [radar beeps] [dramatic music]

look of the titanic wreckage deep in the atlantic ocean. it's the first full-sized digital scan of perhaps the history's most famous shipwreck. a team of scientists carried out what they called the largest underwater scanning project in history. the difference between the original grainy images of the wreck that bob ballard took in 1985 and nowadays where, aided with cgi,

we've been able to scan the seabed almost as though the water's been drained away. and there she is. and of course, we're now able to see things at the level of detail, for example, of pieces of jewelry on the seabed within the wreck. reporter: they believe the large-scale underwater scanning project is a game changer, and it may solve the mystery of what exactly caused the luxury passenger liner to sink in the atlantic in 1912. [rumbling] [sombermusic] tim maltin: on the night of april 14, 1912, the weather conditions seemed to be perfect. the visibility was excellent. there was no wind. the sea was as calm as anyone had known it on the north atlantic. i think they were sort of comfortable that they would see the ice and get out of the way in time. [crashing] titanic sank in what i call a perfect storm of calm.

tad fitch: and you can see where the ship broke apart. it was much messier than what has been portrayed in the movies. it was very violent. [dramatic music] the titanic was considered unsinkable because it had these watertight compartments sort of, like, an ice cube tray. you fill one cube compartment in an ice cube tray, it doesn't flow into the next one until it rises high enough. oren liebermann: the titanic was built with 16 watertight compartments. this was revolutionary for its day. so everyone believed that this was one of the safest ships ever built. don lynch: you have the largest ship in the world. it's on its maiden voyage. i seem to recall that it was 883 feet long. don lynch: which is like three football fields, which was enormous. tim maltin: she was several stories high. she had 11 decks in total. don lynch: i believe it weighed around 53,000 tons.

tim maltin: she had 900 crew. she could take 2,500 passengers. don lynch: and it's supposed to be unsinkable. tim maltin: there was this sense of excitement about the newest, biggest. craig sopin: if people wanted to travel in luxury, titanic was it. tim maltin: titanic had many of the luxuries that you would associate with a five-star hotel on land. she had a state-of-the-art for the time gymnasium. kellie carter jackson: and there's the top-of-the-line chefs and cuisines. titanic attracted a lot of millionaire passengers, so it really was sort of a who's who among passenger lists. [smooth music] most famously, john jacob astor, who was the richest man in the world at the time-- his fortune then was equivalent today of about $2.3 billion. tom meyers: john jacob astor and his cousin, william, ran the most profitable hotel in the city

for decades, the waldorf astoria. craig sopin: isidor strauss was a very rich man. greg daugherty: he made his wealth as a co-owner of the big department store macy's. don lynch: and you had benjamin guggenheim on board. greg daugherty: benjamin guggenheim was a 46-year-old industrialist. benjamin guggenheim was born into a fortune. he was not new money. he was old money. tim maltin: there was a very attractive actress on the titanic. greg daugherty: dorothy gibson. she had been a model for an illustrator, did a lot of magazine covers. craig sopin: she was also one of the highest-paid silent film actresses at the time, well known for quite a few films, even though she was in her early 20s at the time of the titanic . [melancholic music] julian fellowes: the first class on a ship like titanic were considered a kind of golden race,

these marvelous men and women with their wonderful cars and chauffeurs and ladies maids and-- they were all gods and goddesses, really. tim maltin: but let's not forget that that same excitement went for even the third class passengers, from the richest people to the poorest people. all of them were having a great time and reveling in the wonders of the ship. shelly binder: leah aks is my great-grandmother. she was traveling in third class. [upbeat music] the party that jack dawson brought roads to in third class in the movie titanic actually happened, and my great-grandmother was there. [rousing music] kellie carter jackson: joseph philippe lemercier laroche was the only black man on the titanic. joseph was a second-class passenger.

i believed he always sort of wanted to return to haiti and to be with his family. julian fellowes: titanic was that society in miniature. everyone was aboard immigrants as well as high-born noble women in their diamonds. they were all there. i think the titanic was the last known real moment in history where everybody knew their place. and i think that's why people love it, love to talk about it, love to think about it, because it's an era that is literally frozen in time there. and things were never the same afterwards. [theme music]

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[ominous music] anderson cooper: the desperate search for the oceangate titan the experimental submersible, essentially a miniature submarine, with five people inside. they had hoped to visit the wreck of the titanic sitting on the ocean floor in the north atlantic, but now they face a disaster of their own-- their air slowly running out. locating a vessel the size of a large car in an area twice the size of connecticut will simply take more time than they have. reporter: it is this tiny vessel. it's very cramped. it's small. it can only fit five people on board. you can see how tightly packed they are, people facing in different directions. josh gates: you get inside. you sit down on the floor of titan.

they close this big, heavy door, and they bolt it shut from the outside. so once you're in titan, somebody has to let you out of the sub from the outside. they have no control over what's going on and almost helplessness. it doesn't matter what they do. they cannot find their own solution within the submersible itself. they have to wait for somebody else to find them. reporter: the crew now has less than 30 hours of oxygen. if you panic on board and hyperventilate, you use more oxygen. so these were all the questions on how much oxygen is really available. easy. don't stress. don't panic. use as little energy as you can. which is obviously easier said than done in this situation. it would be hard not to be freaked out. interviewee: it could have been an electrical failure on board, so therefore, systems are shut down. if they are alive and they're in there, they're going to be at almost freezing temperatures. the conditions would be horrendous, pitch-black, freezing-cold, and dwindling oxygen.

all three of those things make for a nightmare scenario. michelle turman: i don't think until i actually dove the wreck did i understand the gravity and the responsibility of telling the story. i felt like i was in a sacred space. you start trolling around the ship, you start trolling around the ocean bottom and trying to see things that you could extract. many of the artifacts, whether it was a first-class officer uniform, whether it was a suitcase that we brought up that had a pipe in there that still had tobacco, whether it was a champagne bottle that was still corked or a bottle of olives or telling the story in a respectful way of passengers, of real lives. when one sees some of these artifacts, like a soap dish or a plate, it does

go through your mind of, who was the last person to use this? and what was it like being them over 100 years ago and going down the ship on that fateful night? [stirring music] greg daugherty: john jacob astor iv was returning to the united states from europe, where he'd been honeymooning with his pregnant 18-year-old wife. craig sopin: madeleine force astor. greg daugherty: and so they wanted to get home in plenty of time before the baby was born. andrew wilson: ida and isidor straus had been married for more than four decades. they'd had an incredibly happy marriage throughout that time. the straus' had been traveling in europe, and they thought the return voyage would be a wonderfully pleasant, relaxing trip back to america. [suspenseful music] one of the things people question

is, was titanic going too fast into a known ice field. don lynch: at the time of the collision, they were going the fastest they had ever gone during the voyage. captain smith was the premier white star captain. he'd had an excellent career. tim maltin: he was known as the millionaire's captain, and he actually loved going fast. [waves crashing] there is some evidence that they were trying to break the maiden voyage crossing time of titanic's sister ship, rms olympic. there's some pretty credible evidence to that effect. tim maltin: what they thought was, we'll surprise them, and we'll arrive a day early so that when the papers wake up in the morning in new york, the mist will lift, and the titanic will be there. [ominous music] don lynch: the titanic had been receiving ice warnings for several days from ships that had been traveling through that region. i think they had received seven ice warnings during the day. greg daugherty: some were heeded, but others were not.

tad fitch: the wireless operators-- they were backed up on correspondence and were under pressure to get that sent. [suspenseful music] don lynch: people were wiring ahead to book their hotels for when they got to new york and things like that. there was one particular one which would have suggested to titanic on april 14 the titanic was heading into a heavy ice floe. they were basically saying, we're stopped and surrounded by ice. bill wormstedt: phillips just stuck it off to the side to get to it in a few minutes, but he never got back to it. he didn't deliver this message to captain smith. [waves crashing] tim maltin: the weather conditions were so extraordinarily clear that they caused people to make some errors of judgment about navigation. greg daugherty: the two lookouts on duty at the time in the crow's nest were frederick fleet and reginald lee. tim maltin: there was what the lookouts described as a "slight

haze" all around the horizon. that's called a refraction haze, and that delayed the sighting of the iceberg. oren liebermann: they didn't see the iceberg until they were just practically right upon it. bill wormstedt: kind of rose up out of the ocean. tim maltin: the lookouts described it as a dark mass that came through that haze. [horn sounds] tad fitch: they realized it was an iceberg and rang the warning bell. [bell rings] three rings on the bell for an obstacle directly ahead and then telephoned the bridge. bill wormstedt: fleet called down and said, iceberg dead ahead. don lynch: and so they immediately began maneuvers. bill wormstedt: they started turning to the left, around the iceberg. tad fitch: and it looked like it was going to miss the iceberg entirely at first, and that's when they heard a grinding noise. [metallic scraping] [dramatic music] bill wormstedt: the iceberg contacted the titanic up very close to the bow. [metallic scraping] to the people in the one boiler room, they said it was like the whole side of the ship gave away.

the clock in the wheelhouse said that it was 11:40 pm precisely. [waves crashing] [theme music]

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grandpa! what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. it really happened. the night of the titanic disaster, the lookout scanning the ice field did not have the advantage of binoculars. titanic's binoculars were locked away, stashed in a locker in the crow's nest, and the key to the locker was not on board.

a sailor reassigned to another ship at the last minute forgot to leave the key behind when he left. lookout fred fleet, who survived the titanic sinking, would later insist that if binoculars had been available, the iceberg would have been spotted in enough time for the ship to take evasive action, saving the lives of everyone on board. [dramatic music] after the titanic hit the iceberg, shards of ice dropped onto the boat deck. some people were seen throwing them around, having a bit of snow fight. there was one passenger that said, oh, get me some ice so i can put it in my drink. tim maltin: and as soon as the collision occurred, smith came forward onto the bridge. [suspenseful music] tad fitch: the first thing in his mind was, how badly are we damaged? is it something that the ship's pumps can keep ahead of? can they get that water out and prevent it from flooding catastrophically? andrew wilson: captain smith met with thomas andrews, who's

the chief engineer, and they went down to the bowels of the ship to inspect the damage. they saw the water pouring in. don lynch: the titanic was considered unthinkable because it had these watertight compartments. if you fill one, it doesn't flow into the next one until it rises high enough. [ominous music] tim maltin: if she had a head-on collision-- [crashing] --she could float with four of her first watertight compartments flooded. didn't hit the iceberg head-on. don lynch: they had sideswiped the iceberg to where the first five compartments were flooded, and they flooded enough fast enough that they couldn't keep up with the pumps. julian fellowes: it was an odd thing. if they hadn't tried to pull the liner to one side to avoid the iceberg, they would have hit it dead on, and they wouldn't have sunk because the compartments

built into the design would have contained the incoming sea. but by turning, the iceberg had the opportunity to slash right down the side. [metallic scraping] tim maltin: and that caused an enormous amount of underwater damage. it's a mathematical certainty that she would sink. tad fitch: thomas andrews was actually seen racing up the grand staircase three stairs at a time with a look of terror on his face and at 12:25 delivers that devastating news that the ship was doomed. greg daugherty: hundreds and hundreds of people were going to die. it must just have been an awful realization. [metallic scraping] bill wormstedt: captain smith told the marconi operators, jack phillips mainly, to send out the call for distress. the first distress call went out at 12:15 titanic time, which is about 40 minutes after the iceberg hit, saying, "please come, we need help."

one of the messages says, "water getting up to the top of the boilers." greg daugherty: dorothy gibson and her mother were in first class-- [metallic scraping] --and was walking back to her cabin when she heard this "scraping" sound as she described it. andrew wilson: her survival instinct was incredibly strong, so she pushed forward with her mother, pauline, to get on that very first lifeboat. don lynch: john jacob astor was mingling with some other people on the grand staircase, and he actually was told, get your wife out of bed, get up on deck, and get your life jackets. but his wife, being pregnant-- he was more concerned about her condition. and so they went into the gymnasium to get warm. [suspenseful music] tim maltin: and at that point, stewards went all around the ship, knocking on doors, saying, get up, get dressed, put warm things on, and calmly go up to the deck with your life jackets on.

andrew wilson: guggenheim is in his cabin, and he is awakened by his steward. and he's given a life preserver. tad fitch: the officers and crew members didn't tell everybody the ship was sinking because they were trying to prevent a panic. kellie carter jackson: some are in their pjs, their slippers. some people are barefoot. tad fitch: the early stages of the sinking, it was relatively calm. [upbeat violin music] tim maltin: the musicians were brought up onto the deck to play relaxing and actually quite fun music. most people were actually trying to make light and make a brave face of what was going on. [somber music] tad fitch: one of the biggest controversies regarding the night of the disaster is there was a ship that was on the horizon that was seen from titanic. they tried calling through wireless. they tried signaling it with morse lamp. we are the titanic sinking . have your boats ready. but that ship just didn't react,

and captain smith at one point said, what's wrong with them? why aren't they coming to help? tim maltin: what's become known as the mystery ship that never came to her rescue, we now know that the mystery ship-- she was actually the californian. oren liebermann: apparently, the captain of the californian could have seen the titanic from his binoculars. this is still hotly contested to this very day, the question of, why wasn't the californian there as quickly as possible? it's just unfortunate that they missed out completely on any opportunity to possibly help. kellie carter jackson: slowly and surely, though, the ship is taking on water, more and more water. people are panicking, and now they have to utilize the lifeboats that they have on the ship. [theme music]

find the missing titanic tour submersible is underway, and with every passing hour, the situation becomes more dire. [ominous music] right now, all of our efforts are focused on finding the sub. reporter: experts estimate life support for the five passengers on board could

run out by thursday morning. friends of those on board are holding out hope. they were sealed inside the submersible, titan, and lowered into the ocean for their descent to the seabed some 13,000 feet below, about two miles. there was banging and these noises that they were hearing that they we're trying to decipher what those were. --the banging noise perhaps from inside-- reporter: indistinct sounds from the ocean depths could be a sign of life. [banging] reporter: the banging was heard every 30 minutes tuesday. it's quite inconceivable that nature would be so perfectly attuned to send banging noises on the half an hour, and in fact, it is common practice within naval distressed situations that you bang on the hour and on the half an hour. you do have on board the french navy person, pierre-henri nargeolet, and he would know that. they are most likely alive, and we are-- even with a chance, a fighting chance. anderson cooper: hope at this point

may rest on noises detected by sonar. the rescue window continues to shrink. [dramatic music] there was a number of ships that responded to titanic's distress calls. parks stephenson: jack phillips, the senior operator on titanic he first started talking to a german vessel, the frankfurt, who had, according to phillips, too many questions, and what phillips wanted was action. so he basically cut frankfurt off and said, just shut up. stay out of this. bill wormstedt: there was another ship, the mount temple which was about 59 miles away. it immediately turned around and started heading back. tad fitch: but were too far away to provide immediate assistance,

and those aboard titanic-- they knew if they didn't get a hold of somebody closer that almost certainly there was going to be a massive loss of life. tim maltin: the carpathia-- she was actually traveling back from new york to europe, about 60 miles south of titanic's westerly route. oren liebermann: the response to the titanic should have been faster. the titanic started putting out its sos, its distress call, but the wireless room on the carpathia was empty. it was very close to the middle of the night. parks stephenson: carpathia was roughly 60 miles away. frankfurt was over twice that distance away, so it really did make sense for carpathia to be the ship that phillips would prioritize. [suspenseful music] oren liebermann: some time after the distress signals from the titanic first went out, the carpathia responded. it was on its way.

andrew wilson: phillips and bride cut in from titanic and basically said, where have you been? we're sinking. come now. come immediately. bill wormstedt: on the carpathia, captain rostron immediately ordered the ship to be turned around and headed toward the titanic. tad fitch: he knew it was a desperate race. bill wormstedt: all he could do was just go and hope, and they came to the rescue. [eerie music] there's a lot of conversation about why titanic didn't have enough lifeboats for everyone. don lynch: they were required to have 16 by law but they had four extra craig sopin: there were 20 lifeboats, so if we do the math-- don lynch: if they had filled all 20 lifeboats to capacity, they could have carried 1,100 people. but there were more than 2,200 people on the titanic. bill wormstedt: 712 people were saved, so there was a lot of empty spaces. greg daugherty: i believe that lifeboat drills were fairly common on ships in those days.

the titanic didn't have one, unfortunately, but was supposed to have one on the 14th, which is the date that it hit the iceberg. for some reason it was called off. tad fitch: it was intended for the crew, and they might have mustered certain crew members on deck and made sure that they knew which lifeboat they were to go to. the most senior surviving officer from the titanic was in charge. he was very strict about women and children only. no men allowed in the boat. there was a man who was trying to dress like a woman or at least appear to be a woman, and he wore, like, a floor-length mackintosh, which was, like, a raincoat, which would have passed as a woman's coat. and then he did pull, like, a towel over his head to look like a scarf and got into a boat. andrew wilson: after the order was given to abandon ship, joseph and juliet laroche hurriedly got their girls ready to go up on deck. kellie carter jackson: joseph scoops up simone,

and juliet scoops up louise. and they make their way up to the top deck of the ship. the two of them are separated. [indistinct shouting] a crew person sees juliet and louise, and he ushers them onto the lifeboat. juliet is panicking because she cannot find joseph, and she cannot find simon. they lost each other. by some miracle, they were able to find each other as they boarded the lifeboats. kellie carter jackson: and there's commotion. a crew member simply takes, simone hands her to her mother, and within moments, the lifeboat plunges toward the sea without her husband. [ominous music] bill wormstedt: and most of the forward lifeboats that left early in the sequence went down only partway full. [stirring music] tim maltin: titanic, although she sank slowly, she was actually sinking faster and faster and faster as she was settling deeper and deeper in the water, and crowds started to form around the last lifeboats.

and that's where order started to break down. tad fitch: pushing and shoving and people panicking, trying to force their way in, and then it deteriorated that quickly into, like, a horrific scene. we know that several officers did have revolvers with them. tim maltin: and many of them shot them into the air-- [gunshot] --in order to startle passengers and calm them down and bring them to their senses. fifth officer lowe had his own revolver, and he actually did fire it at-- [gunshot] --lifeboat number 14. tad fitch: he was afraid that the passengers were going to jump from the promenade deck and cause the boat to buckle or collapse. craig sopin: john jacob astor had his lifebelt on. tad fitch: and so he took his wife, and they went up to the starboard side. greg daugherty: he did usher his bride into a lifeboat. and even when we have astor asking to sit next to his very young and very frightened pregnant wife and he's turned down, he doesn't remonstrate. he just steps back and throws his gloves

so she wouldn't have cold hands, which i find rather touching. tad fitch: isidor and ida straus were a couple that had been married for an extremely long time. greg daugherty: their story is one of the classic titanic stories. he tried to get her to go into a lifeboat. don lynch: lifeboat 8. but she wouldn't get in and went up to her husband and said, we've been together too many years. where you go, i go. [suspenseful music] third class at that time was mostly immigrants. leah aks was a lady from england and had a child. shelley binder: so here she is, trying to get up the stairs, trying to go up into the aft well deck. andrew wilson: there were some reports of when people in steerage, third class, tried to get up from the bowels of the ship. some of the gates were locked to the top deck, where they could find a lifeboat. [metal rattling] tim maltin: and they were shaking the gate and asking for the gates to be opened.

[indistinct shouting] shelley binder: there were hundreds of people pushing their way up there, and there was a logjam. leah literally had to fight for her life. and nobody was sort of on top of it. the one that lady duff-gordon got into with her husband-- they only had 12 people in a boat that should have had 60. it wasn't so much evil as a kind of incompetence that saddens me that so many more people died than need have. julie cook: there were a good 2 and 1/2 hours, three hours before it sank, and so you have all this time to be fearful, to be terrified. and i think that's the true horror of what happened on the titanic. [screaming] [theme music]

♪ ♪ [sfx] water lapping. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [sfx] water splashing. ♪ ♪ [sfx] ambient / laughing. ♪ ♪

[sfx] [eerie music]ghing. these are the only pictures we know of of the titanic's lifeboats with the survivors on board. it's hard to imagine the trauma they have just been through, the horror of the sinking itself, families ripped apart. mothers were separated from their children. it happened.

[dramatic music] chaos starts to ensue. it creeps up and then slowly spreads to the rest of the ship. [indistinct shouting] oren liebermann: as the ship is going down, leah aks hands her 10-month-old baby boy to another man, who helps her try to make her way along the deck and along the ship towards the lifeboats. but he's moving much faster than her on board a ship that is sinking, and she loses sight of her 10-month-old boy. when she got to the top, they didn't wait for her with the baby. shelley binder: and out of the corner of her eye, she sees what she thinks is someone throwing her baby into the ocean, and she ran around the deck, looking, asking everybody, have you seen my baby? have you seen my baby? no, no, no. and she said she contemplated jumping after him.

she was so upset that she was on the verge of a dead faint, and she lost her mind. and then she was in this lifeboat, floating around in the middle of the north atlantic. oren liebermann: benjamin guggenheim-- he was traveling with his mistress. tim maltin: a young french singer, léontine aubart. greg daugherty: he managed to get her and her maid into a lifeboat. craig sopin: he is one of those characters on titanic that makes it into almost every book and every film because of one particular thing that occurred. greg daugherty: the story goes that he and his manservant-- craig sopin: --go back to the stateroom, and they change into their best. i mean, who was getting dressed in tuxedos when the ship is going down? and somebody said, what are you doing dressed as you are? and he said, we've dressed in our best, and we are prepared to go down like gentlemen.

greg daugherty: there was a story that john jacob astor let all the dogs out of the titanic's kennels so they wouldn't be trapped in the sinking ship. he was a big dog lover. [dogs barking] [eerie music] tim maltin: captain smith during the sinking remained very calm and very brave. after all the lifeboats have left, he goes around releasing the crew. he basically puts a hand on their shoulder and says, you've done all you can. it's every man for himself now. [indistinct shouting] as the weight of water pulled the bow lower and lower, you still had this very buoyant stern of the titanic. don lynch: the stern began to rise a little bit. greg daugherty: people were still on board. don lynch: all of a sudden, a wave came over them and engulfed them. they felt the ship really sinking. some people started running. [screaming] tim maltin: most passengers had run to the back of the ship, and they thought they might survive. don lynch: people headed up there just to higher ground.

they began grabbing onto things. people were, like, clinging like bees in clumps to the different things. [indistinct shouting] it was total pandemonium. [ominous music] 2 and 1/2 hours after striking the iceberg, more than seven tons of frigid water was pouring into the ship every second, far more than the pumps could force back out. as the bow steadily plunged below the surface, the last of titanic ' s lilfebos were being loaded and launched. but there were 1,500 souls still stranded aboard who realized there will be no chance of a rescue for them. and there was no real guarantee for the people adrift in the rowboats. do any vessels know they're out there? is aid on the way? the frightening ordeal continues for the refugees of the doomed ocean liner in part 2 of titanic. i'm jesse l. martin. thank you for watching. [dramatic music]